Officials say the program is important because of what heroin addictions lead to -- crimes to feed habits, families torn apart and overdoses.

“I lost a son to ... an overdose that included heroin a little over a year ago, so it's very personal with me,” Jefferson County attorney Mike O’Connell said.

O'Connell's son was among 105 people who died of heroin overdoses in Jefferson County last year.

To fight this epidemic, he and the Jefferson County commonwealth's attorney, Tom Wine, are launching the Heroin Rocket Docket.

As the name implies, it's a streamlined process.

“Every day that we can move quicker than where we are I think is going to help these people,” Wine said.

Wine's office prosecutes most heroin cases.

But the cases begin in district court, O'connell's purview, and there are many other steps in the traditional process.

“You may be talking six months before we can even hope to have the start of a resolution. That's opportunity for these people to reoffend, to go back and use again and again and again,” Wine said.

The Heroin Rocket Docket aims to shrink that time.

As soon as someone is brought to jail for possession of heroin, he or she is evaluated.

The jail will forward that evaluation to a rocket docket prosecutor who can recommend treatment within days instead of months.

“Treatment and helping people break this habit will allow us the opportunity to fight crime. If you're not working, you're stealing to feed your habit,” Wine said.

The program also has another goal.

“I would just hope this can save some lives for people, particularly the young ones that think they're going to live forever,” O’Connell said.

The Heroin Rocket Docket program is being started with a $108,000 grant from the state.

That grant was one of the provisions of the anti-heroin bill passed this year in the state Legislature.

A spokesman for Louisville Metro Corrections says they also support the new program.

They issued a statement that read, in part, "A reduction in the return of heroin users to incarceration will allow metro corrections to use its resources and its cell space to safely manage those individuals that present the most danger to our community."